Praha, Czech Republic!

Feeling like we had only just gotten home we were off again on Thursday prepared for an 18 hour overnight train ride to Prague.  On the way there we only had one connection in Zurich so it was nice not to have to switch so many times.  We left a little after 4:00 which was perfect because we got to watch the sunset on our way to Zurich which is one of the prettiest train rides.  The sun setting made it even more beautiful.  I couldn’t capture the prettiest views but I tried to take a couple!

We got to Zurich and had about an hour until our train left for Prague and it being a girls weekend we ran into the grocery store to grab some dinner but made sure to grab some essentials for our overnight train 1) wine 2) crackers and cheese 3) chocolate. Our overnight train was great.  We turned on Adele and sat on our sleeper beds drinking wine with our crackers and cheese and chocolate and in my case pasta dinner and talked for a while until we got our last roommate, a really friendly German man

   

When he arrived we all started to settle into our beds and read or listen to music until we fell asleep.  Unlike my overnight experience on the way to Barcelona, this one was actually all night long so I didn’t have to wake up until about 10:00 because we were due to arrive around 10:30.  I didn’t sleep wonderfully but it wasn’t horrible either.  I woke up 4 or 5 times throughout the night but overall I think I got a good nights sleep.  Trying to get to the hostel after the train was a bit of a challenge.  We can usually pick out certain words or find a map right away to get us where we are going but in the Czech Republic the language is completely unfamiliar and close to no one speaks English.  We had no Czech money yet so when we went to the subway ticket counter and asked about our directions and to get a ticket the man just pointed us down the stairs.  We found the right subway line and hopped on not thinking that we still didn’t have tickets to be on the subway!  Lucky for us they never checked…. Otherwise I’m pretty sure we’d have a hefty fine to pay or be in a Czech jail… one of the two.  After that we took a tram and then voila! we found the hostel.  From there we converted our money across the street. This conversion rate was certainly difficult to keep up with because you had to divide everything by 20 to get to the approximate cost… so if it says 60 Czech Korunas that means it’s a little over $3.00.  It was hard to get out of the mindset that something did actually cost that much and not just $0.60.

Our bill one morning. -- once we had a bill over 2000!

We were too early to check into our hostel so we stored our bags and then headed towards Old Town to look around the markets for a little while until our free tour at 2:00.  It was about 25 degrees in Prague so we were back to our normal uniforms again—long coats and duck boots.

We were lucky we chose to come this weekend because it is almost Easter so they’re annual Easter markets were going on while we were there.  There were a number of delicious Czech food and trinket stands, I loved it!  The markets might be one of my favorite things in every city. 

We got a sausage for lunch and a traditional Czech dessert called Staroceska.  It’s a rolled pastry type thing that’s rolled in sugar and then has Nutella spread on the inside—I told you they love Nutella in Europe!  I also got a skewer of chocolate covered pineapple because I couldn’t help myself its my favorite fruit covered in chocolate.

     

 

We walked around the markets a little looking at everything they had but we were so cold we wound up buying hot wine (which was really tasty!!) and standing beside some space heaters until our tour was about to start. 

Our tour began in Old Town at St. Nicholas Church.  Our tour guide was an American German who ended up staying in Czech Republic because he fell in love with a girl.  Our tour guides name was Aimen.  He told me that prior to becoming a tour guide he had been a Mormon missionary and he met this girl when he was in the Czech Republic and never left.  Anyways, we started at St. Nicholas Church which is actually named after the good old Christmas St. Nicholas aka Santa.

Apparently this church took over 200 years to finish (seems to be a trend amongst these European churches) but has been finished since 1511.  Next stop was the astronomical clock.

The clock was first installed way back in 1411 making it the 3^rd oldest in the world and the oldest one that still works! It has an hourly show… though we never ended up being there around the time it occurred to see it.  After the astronomical clock we went into New Town.  On the way there we ran across a very peculiar movie scene? A woman wearing stilletos and a costume dress atop a donkey yelling “Praha! Praha! Praha!” as she waved a stick up and down in the air.

 

 

After that our tour guide showed us the states theatre (where Mozart performed two operas!), the powder tower, municipal house, Jewish quarter, Spanish synagogue, Stalin’s famous metronome, Ian Pollock square, and the Rudolfinum, as well as a lot of other places along the way.  We introduced ourselves to some of the different people on our tour and it turns out that two of them were from Chesterfield! What a small world. 

After the tour we went back to our hostel to get ready for the famous Prague Pub Crawl.  A lot of our friends had done it during the first ten day and told us we absolutely had to if we went to Prague.  It took us a little while to get ready, so to save time we decided to go ahead and eat dinner at Bellushi’s downstairs.

We thought that an hour and half would be plenty of time to get our food and go to the Pub Crawl… but Bellushi’s somehow lost our order and we watched tables around us keep getting food even though they had ordered after us.  After about 45 minutes we said something and then they realized what had happened and still had to prepare it.  We didn’t get our food until we had been waiting for over an hour and then we had to scarf it down and take a cab to the bar crawl instead of walking because we didn’t have any time.  Lucky for us it ended up being a really cheap cab anyways! The pub crawl was awesome.  We got there just in time and they took us to the first bar that had unlimited drinks for an hour. 

 Afterwards we stopped by a few other bars that had various specials for bar crawl participants.  We ended the pub crawl at a 5 story club- Karlovy Lazne, that played different types of music on every floor.

 

 They even had an Ice Bar! But we never ended up going into it because it cost additional money.  Our favorite floor of the club was definitely the oldies floor where we basically sand every song at the top of our lungs and danced ridiculously.  We made our way home once it started getting really late but made a quick pit stop at Burrito Loco—they had mini quesadillas for around $1… deeelicious.  The next morning we got up and made our way to Bohemia Bagel for breakfast.

It had been months since any of us had eaten a bagel so we felt like we were in heaven when our breakfast sandwiches arrived.  Afterwards we made our way to Prague Castle.  We stopped in St. Vitus Cathedral where the stained glass reflected off of the windows and onto the wall it was so pretty.

 

 The castle itself wasn’t all that spectacular, but I am glad that we did a tour and got to see some more of the history of Prague.

Then we went to the Lennon Wall! We spent a lot of time reading the wall and having a miniature photo shoot.

 

 Megan, Taylor, and I were about to take a DG picture when we met two other DGs there, so naturally we all had to take a photo together.

 
Then we made our way back across Charles Bridge.  The bridge is filled with vendors and music, definitely one of the aspects I’ll miss about Europe—no matter where you go someone is on the street playing some music to brighten your day.  The bridge was also lined with a lot of statues.

After that we went back into old and new town to do some shopping.  We got a snack in Old Town—grilled cheese.  Not the American version but literally a grilled piece of cheese.  Cheese is one of my favorite foods but this surprisingly tasted awful.  I’m glad I tried it though.

In the Easter markets they sell these hand painted easter egg shells.  It is some sort of tradition.  They are all very unique and intricately painted.  I gave in and bought a few to take home as a memory.

 

We were getting pretty hungry so we decided to go to U Tri Ruzi for dinner because they brew their own beer and it had great trip advisor reviews!

 
We had just placed our order when the power went out!  This turned into playing music and flashing strobe lights on our phones while we patiently waited for the power to come back on.  My biggest concern the whole time—that I wouldn’t get the roasted pork knuckle that I ordered.  I had seen someone else who had ordered it and it looked absolutely amazing. 

It turned out that the power was not going to come back on for over an hour so we decided to leave and try somewhere else.  We opened our trip advisor apps on our phone and had them guide us to the next best thing.  The first place we stopped had a line out the door so we decided against that as it was already getting late.  The next place we found was called Zlaty Hrozen.  It was a small restaurant and had room for us so we sat down and gave it a try.

 Thank the lord…. roasted pork knuckle was on the menu! So of course I ordered it.  My meal came with broccoli and dumplings, it was delicious!  The pork knuckle was GIGANTIC. Once I was full it didn’t even look like I had taken a bite.

Everyone got something different so we all had a taste of traditional Eastern Europe food- roadst duck, pork brisket, stuffed chicken-- it was all amazing.  After dinner we made our way back to the hostel and called it a night, exhausted from an excellent weekend.  We woke up the next morning and had breakfast at the hostel then caught a taxi to the train station for our long trip home.  Apparently the tracks we needed to take were under construction to we ended up on a pretty fancy little bus for the first few hours of our journey.

It was a long trip because it wasn’t overnight, but we had a lot of connections to break it up a bit.  I’ve learned that I love Eastern Europe!  I didn’t really know what to expect coming into this trip but so far Munich and Prague have been very cool cities.  Next time I’m in Europe I’ll be sure to add some more Eastern Europe destinations to the trip.